Services Trade in Africa: Structure and Growth
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Date
2022-07
Authors
Ariu, Andrea
Ogliari, Laura
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Abstract
This paper shows that trade in services is still at its infancy in Africa; its growth started
later than for other developed and developing economies and, so far, it involves mostly
low-skilled services. Disentangling the different sources of trade growth, we find
that demand and supply determinants have been relatively stable during the period
2002‒2016, while service diversification and trade policy are the main propellants.
In particular, trade in goods liberalization increased service trade as well due to
the complementarities between the two. In terms of geographical and industrial
involvement, services produced in Africa are able to reach farther destinations than
goods, but they are concentrated on industries close to final demand, thus missing
high-skilled services which are more upstream, but represent higher value-added
inputs. Therefore, there is still plenty of scope to consider trade in services as a
potential source of growth and development for African countries.
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Keywords
Africa; Trade in services.